Misplaced Pages

#257742

43-692: Prior to 1963, the Iranian military industry consisted of a number of independent factories. Iran's military industry was born under the last Shah of Iran , Mohammad Reza Pahlavi . In 1973, the Iran Electronics Industries (IEI) was founded to organize efforts to assemble and repair foreign-delivered weapons. Most of Iran's weapons before the Islamic revolution were imported from the United States and Europe. Between 1971 and 1975,

86-458: A neutral country , but Britain insisted that German engineers and technicians in Iran were spies with missions to sabotage British oil facilities in southwestern Iran. Britain demanded that Iran expel all German citizens, but Rezā Shāh refused, claiming this would adversely affect his development projects. Iran claimed to be a neutral country during the opening years of World War II. In April 1941,

129-624: A parliamentary constitutional monarchy where the Shah served as the head of state and the prime minister as its head of government. The National Consultative Assembly was the nation's unicameral parliament, from 1949 it became the lower house when the Senate was established as its upper house of the parliament. Under the Qajar dynasty the Persian character of Iran was not very explicit. Although

172-629: A guest of Anwar Sadat . On his death, his son Reza Pahlavi , who was formally invested as Crown Prince on 26 October 1967, succeeded him as head of the Pahlavi dynasty. Reza Pahlavi and his wife live in the United States in Potomac, Maryland , with three daughters. As of 2013, Reza Pahlavi established the National Council of Iran in Paris, which serves as a government in exile to reclaim

215-612: A hitherto unprecedented socio-economic program that would transform all aspects of Iranian life through the White Revolution . Consequently, Iran experienced prodigious success in all indicators, including literacy, health, and standard of living. By 1978, the Shah faced growing public discontent that culminated into a full-fledged popular revolutionary movement led by religious cleric Ruhollah Khomeini . Mohammed Reza Pahlavi went into exile with his family in January 1979, sparking

258-562: A more autocratic monarchy until the dynasty was itself overthrown in 1979 . In 1878, Reza Khan was born at the village of  Alasht in  Savadkuh County , Mazandaran Province. His parents were Abbas Ali Khan and Noushafarin Ayromlou. His mother was a Muslim immigrant from Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire ), whose family had emigrated to mainland Qajar Iran after Iran was forced to cede all of its territories in

301-578: A series of events that quickly led to the end of monarchy, and the establishment of the Islamic Republic on 31 March 1979. Following Mohammed Reza Pahlavi's death in 1980, his son, Reza Pahlavi , now leads the exiled family throne. In 1925, Reza Khan, a former Brigadier-General of the Persian Cossack Brigade , deposed the Qajar dynasty and declared himself king ( shah ), adopting the dynastic name of Pahlavi , which recalls

344-680: A vote of 79–12, who shortly after nationalized the British-owned oil industry (see Abadan Crisis ). Mossadegh was opposed by the Shah who feared a resulting oil embargo imposed by the West would leave Iran in economic ruin. The Shah fled Iran but returned when the United Kingdom and the United States staged a coup against Mossadegh in August 1953 (see 1953 Iranian coup d'état ). Mossadegh was then arrested by pro-Shah army forces. Following

387-611: A week of fighting. The invasion's strategic purpose was to secure a supply line to the USSR (later named the Persian Corridor ), secure the oil fields and Abadan Refinery (of the UK-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company ), and limit German influence in Iran. Following the invasion, on 16 September 1941 Reza Shah abdicated and was replaced by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , his 21-year-old son. During

430-574: Is also the key organisation driving Iran's significant military industry. In 2007, following events in Iran's Nuclear Program , the United Nations Security Council placed sanctions against Iran forbidding it from exporting any form of weapons. Pahlavi dynasty The Pahlavi dynasty ( Persian : دودمان پهلوی ) was the last Iranian royal dynasty that ruled for roughly 53 years between 1925 and 1979. The dynasty

473-618: The Allies reassured the Iranians that all foreign troops would leave by 2 March 1946. At the time, the Tudeh Party of Iran , a communist party that was already influential and had parliamentary representation, was becoming increasingly militant, especially in the North. This promoted actions from the side of the government, including attempts of the Iranian armed forces to restore order in

SECTION 10

#1732797766258

516-636: The Caucasus following the Russo-Persian Wars several decades prior to Reza Shah's birth. His father was a Mazandarani, commissioned in the 7th Savadkuh Regiment, and served in the Anglo-Persian War in 1856. The former constitution of Iran specifically provided that only a male who was not descended from Qajar dynasty could become the heir apparent . This made all half-brothers of Mohammad Reza ineligible to become heirs to

559-678: The Iran–Iraq War in 1980 and the Western arms embargo served as a massive catalyst for the MIO to reorganize its operations. In late 1981, the new revolutionary government of Iran brought together the now disorganised sections of the MIO and placed them under the Defense Industries Organization. The DIO would from this point onwards supervise all production, research and development. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

602-587: The Middle Persian language of the Sasanian Empire . He had chosen the last name Pahlavi for himself in November 1919. By the mid-1930s, Reza Shah's strong secular rule caused dissatisfaction among some groups, particularly the clergy, who opposed his reforms, but the middle and upper-middle class of Iran liked what Rezā Shāh did. In 1935, Rezā Shāh issued a decree asking foreign delegates to use

645-779: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and invaded the Soviet Union , Iran's northern neighbor. The Soviets quickly allied themselves with the Allied countries and in July and August 1941 the British demanded that the Iranian government expel all Germans from Iran. Reza Shah refused to expel the Germans and on 25 August 1941, the British and Soviets launched a surprise invasion and Reza Shah's government quickly surrendered after less than

688-535: The Persian Constitution of 1906 . Initially, Pahlavi had planned to declare the country a republic, as his contemporary Atatürk had done in Turkey , but abandoned the idea in the face of British and clerical opposition. The dynasty ruled Iran for 28 years as a form of constitutional monarchy from 1925 until 1953, and following the overthrow of the elected prime minister , for a further 26 years as

731-620: The Shah went on a buying spree, ordering $ 8 billion in weapons from the United States alone. This alarmed many in the U.S., which strengthened a 1968 law on arms exports in 1976 and renamed it the Arms Export Control Act . Still, the United States continued to sell large amounts of weapons to Iran until the 1979 Islamic Revolution . In an early effort to overhaul Iran's military capabilities, Mohammad Reza Shah ordered

774-642: The United Kingdom and the Soviet Union , the Allies of World War II , had his position extremely weakened by a military coup, and was formally removed from power in 1941 by parliament while he was in France following the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran . After Reza Shah was deposed, he was succeeded by his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , who became the last Shah of Iran . By 1953, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's rule became more autocratic and firmly aligned with

817-517: The Western Bloc during the Cold War in the aftermath of the 1953 Iranian coup d'état , which was engineered by the United Kingdom and the United States . In correspondence with this reorientation of Iran's foreign policy, the country became an ally of the United States in order to act as a bulwark against Soviet ideological expansionism , and this gave the Shah the political capital to enact

860-475: The " White Revolution ". But his socioeconomic advances increasingly irritated the clergy. Islamic leaders, particularly the exiled cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini , were able to focus this discontent with an ideology tied to Islamic principles that called for the overthrow of the Shah and the return to Islamic traditions, called the Islamic revolution . The Pahlavi regime collapsed following widespread uprisings in 1978 and 1979. The Islamic Revolution dissolved

903-658: The British-run Persian Cossack Brigade . About a month later, under British direction, Reza Khan's 3,000–4,000 strong detachment of the Cossack Brigade reached Tehran in what became known as the 1921 Persian coup d'état . The rest of the country was taken by 1923, and by October 1925 the Majlis agreed to depose and formally exile Ahmad Shah Qajar . The Majlis declared Reza Pahlavi as the new Shah of Iran on 12 December 1925, pursuant to

SECTION 20

#1732797766258

946-521: The DIO director was accountable to the deputy minister of defense for logistics , it was the president of Iran , in his capacity as the chairman of the SDC, had ultimate responsibility for all DIO operations. Since 1992, it also has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles, a submarine, and a fighter plane. Today, the DIO has more than 35,000 employees, 30% of whom are university graduates. It

989-697: The Northern provinces. While the Tudeh headquarters in Tehran were occupied and the Isfahan branch crushed, the Soviet troops present in the Northern parts of the country prevented the Iranian forces from entering. Thus, by November 1945 Azerbaijan had become an autonomous state helped by the Tudeh party. This pro-Soviet nominal-government fell by November 1946, after support from the United States for Iran to reclaim

1032-717: The Qajar Dynasty between Persia, the UK, and the Soviets. Although the UK, through its ownership of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company , controlled all of Iran's oil resources, Rezā Shāh preferred to obtain technical assistance from Germany, France, Italy and other European countries. This created problems for Iran after 1939, when Germany and Britain became enemies in World War II . Reza Shah proclaimed Iran as

1075-762: The SAVAK and replaced it with the SAVAMA . It was run after the revolution, according to U.S. sources and Iranian exile sources in the US and in Paris, by Gen. Hossein Fardoust , who was deputy chief of SAVAK under Mohammad Reza's reign, and a friend from boyhood of the deposed monarch. Mohammad Reza fled the country, seeking medical treatment in Egypt , Mexico, the United States, and Panama, and finally resettled with his family in Egypt as

1118-435: The country was referred to as Persia by westerners, and the dominant language in court and administration was Persian , the dichotomy between pure Persian and Turkic elements had remained obvious until 1925. The Pahlavi rule was instrumental in Iran's nationalisation in line with Persian culture and language which, among other ways, was achieved through the official ban on the use of minority languages such as Azerbaijani and

1161-708: The creation of the Military Industries Organization (MIO). Operating as a branch of the Ministry of War , the MIO was to oversee all military production within Iran. Over the next fifteen years, military plants produced small arms ammunition, batteries, tires, copper products, explosives, and mortar rounds and fuses. They also produced rifles and machine guns under license from West Germany . In addition, helicopters , jeeps , trucks, and trailers were assembled from imported kits in attempts to transfer technical knowledge to Iran. Additionally,

1204-659: The former throne after a potential overthrow of the current Islamic Republic government. However, in February 2019, Pahlavi launched an initiative called the Phoenix Project of Iran. According to the National Interest, this is "designed to bring the various strains of the opposition closer to a common vision for a post-clerical Iran." The political system of the Imperial State of Iran took place in

1247-528: The founding of the Achaemenid Empire by Cyrus the Great . The Shah's government suppressed its opponents with the help of Iran's security and intelligence secret police, SAVAK . Such opponents included leftists and Islamists. By the mid-1970s, relying on increased oil revenues, Mohammad Reza began a series of even more ambitious and bolder plans for the progress of his country and the march toward

1290-488: The oil concessions were later revoked. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi replaced his father on the throne on 16 September 1941. He wanted to continue the reform policies of his father, but a contest for control of the government soon erupted between him and an older professional politician, the nationalistic Mohammad Mosaddegh . In 1951, the Majlis (the Parliament of Iran ) named Mohammad Mossadegh as new prime minister by

1333-484: The organization was charged with research and development and took the initiative in reverse engineering a number of Soviet RPG-7 , BM-21 , and SAM-7 missiles in 1979. The Iranian Revolution halted all the military activities of the MIO. Plagued by the upheavals of the time, the MIO was left unable to operate without foreign specialists and technicians; by 1981 it had lost much of its management ability and control over its industrial facilities. The outbreak of

Defense Industries Organization - Misplaced Pages Continue

1376-505: The overthrow of Ahmad Shah Qajar , the last Iranian ruler under the Qajar dynasty . Iran's Majlis , convening as a constituent assembly on 12 December 1925, deposed the young Ahmad Shah Qajar and declared Reza Shah as the new shah of the Imperial State of Persia. In 1935, Reza Shah asked foreign delegates to use the endonym Iran instead of the exonym Persia when addressing the country in formal correspondence. Reza Shah, who proved unable to stop encroachments on Iranian sovereignty by

1419-565: The overthrow of Mossadegh, Iran became steadfastly geopolitically aligned with the United States. During the presidential term of John F. Kennedy , the United States saw Iran as an important ally in the region due to perceiving it as a rare source of stability in the Middle East. On 12–16 October 1971, an elaborate set of celebrations and festivities for the 2,500-year celebration of the Persian Empire occurred in commemoration of

1462-649: The regions that declared themselves autonomous. At the end of the war, Soviet troops remained in Iran and established two puppet states in north-western Iran, namely the People's Government of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Mahabad . This led to the Iran crisis of 1946 , one of the first confrontations of the Cold War , which ended after oil concessions were promised to the USSR and Soviet forces withdrew from Iran proper in May 1946. The two puppet states were soon overthrown and

1505-637: The rest of World War II, Iran became a major conduit for British and American aid to the Soviet Union and an avenue through which over 120,000 Polish refugees and Polish Armed Forces fled the Axis advance. At the 1943 Tehran Conference , the Allied "Big Three"— Joseph Stalin , Franklin D. Roosevelt , and Winston Churchill —issued the Tehran Declaration to guarantee the post-war independence and boundaries of Iran. On 13 September 1943

1548-499: The successful suppression of separatist movements. Reza Shah is credited for the reunification of Iran under a powerful central government. The use of minority languages in schools and newspapers was not tolerated. The succeeding regime – the Islamic Republic of Iran  – has adopted a more inclusive approach in relation to the use of ethnic minorities and their language, however the issues as to Azeris , Iran's largest ethnic minority, remain and pose considerable challenges for

1591-541: The term Iran in formal correspondence, in accordance with the fact that " Persia " was a term used by Western people for the country called "Iran" in Persian. His successor, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, announced in 1959 that both Persia and Iran were acceptable and could be used interchangeably. Reza Shah tried to avoid involvement with the UK and the Soviet Union . Though many of his development projects required foreign technical expertise, he avoided awarding contracts to British and Soviet companies because of dissatisfaction during

1634-593: The throne. Until his death in 1954, the Shah's only full brother Ali Reza was his heir presumptive . The constitution also required the Shah to be of Iranian descent, meaning that his father and mother are Iranian. ( Became king ) 26 October 1967 ( Designated ) ( Father deposed ) Pahlavi Iran The Imperial State of Iran , officially known in English as the Imperial State of Persia until 1935, and commonly referred to as Pahlavi Iran ,

1677-563: The unity and territorial integrity of Iran . The rulers of the Imperial State of Iran – Reza Shah Pahlavi and his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi – employed secret police, torture, and executions to stifle political dissent. The Pahlavi dynasty has sometimes been described as an "Imperial dictatorship" or "one-man rule". . Additionally, the country enjoyed a brief interlude of democracy from 1941 to 1953. Manouchehr Ganji led an anti-corruption study group which submitted at least 30 reports in 13 years detailing corruption of high-ranking officials and

1720-547: The war reached Iran's borders when Rashid Ali , with assistance from Germany and Italy , launched the 1941 Iraqi coup d'état , sparking the Anglo-Iraqi War of May 1941. Germany and Italy quickly sent the pro-Axis forces in Iraq military aid from Syria but during the period from May to July the British and their allies defeated the pro-Axis forces in Iraq and later Syria and Lebanon . In June 1941, Nazi Germany broke

1763-437: Was founded by Reza Shah Pahlavi , a non-aristocratic Mazanderani soldier in modern times, who took on the name of the Pahlavi language spoken in the pre-Islamic Sasanian Empire to strengthen his nationalist credentials. The dynasty replaced the Qajar dynasty in 1925 after the 1921 coup d'état , beginning on 14 January 1921 when 42-year-old soldier Reza Khan was promoted by British General Edmund Ironside to lead

Defense Industries Organization - Misplaced Pages Continue

1806-432: Was put in charge of re-organising the domestic military industry. Under their command Iran's military industry was dramatically expanded, and with the Ministry of Defence pouring capital into the missile industry, Iran soon had an arsenal of missiles. In 1987, the DIO was governed by a mixed civilian-military board of directors and a managing director responsible for the actual management and planning activities. Although

1849-427: Was the Iranian state under the rule of the Pahlavi dynasty . The Pahlavi dynasty was created in 1925 and lasted until 1979, when it was ousted as part of the Islamic Revolution , which ended Iran's continuous monarchy and established the current Islamic Republic of Iran . The Pahlavis came to power in 1925 with the ascension to the throne of Reza Shah , a former brigadier-general of the Persian Cossack Brigade , and

#257742